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I-495 may reopen in September

Workers pour concrete at pier number 11 at damaged I-495 bridge last week. Crews are working to put jacks in place in hopes of having both directions of the interstate open in September.
(Photo:
JENNIFER CORBETT/THE NEWS JOURNAL
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Story Highlights

Bridge was shut down on June 2

Officials hope to have temporary structures in place to reopen all of I-495 in September

DNREC continues to investigate potential environmental problems at site

Crews continued to erect temporary support towers beneath the damaged I-495 bridge in Wilmington this week in preparation for leveling the span before reopening it to traffic.

The bridge, which carried an average 90,000 vehicles a day, closed for emergency repairs June 2. Contractors began around-the-clock work last month on a $35 million emergency project to replace four sets of tipping support columns just south of the Christina River.

The southbound lanes could reopen several weeks before Labor Day, and the northbound lanes could reopen two weeks to a month later, with permanent repairs to come in the following months.

The Delaware Department of Transportation said Wednesday the jacking towers are being reinforced using steel cables to tether them to anchor points. Bridge engineers are designing a system with special boxes to house the jacks, bracing and other custom steel components.

"The positions on the top of the towers where the jacks will interact with the deck must be exact and are critical to the success of the project," officials said in a project update.

Elsewhere at the site, workers are closing the 6-foot-by-6 foot holes made in the deck of the bridge to allow 150-foot lengths of steel to pass through for the new foundation.

The next step will be putting the jacks in place to begin the gradual process of realigning the bridge deck. "How well this phase of the work will go is unknown, and the possibility does exist for setbacks or problems to occur," the agency said in its weekly update.

State environmental officials are moving ahead with an investigation into the unregulated stockpiling of soil that engineers say tilted the bridge. The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control has ordered an assessment of the ground below the span.

Timothy Ratsep, administrator of DNREC's site investigation and restoration section, said that the agency plans to amend a voluntary cleanup agreement with the DuPont Co. to include the site of the stockpiled soil as part of the overall environmental remedy. The land was once part of the company's larger Christina Labs property along Christiana Avenue.

After a lab shutdown and demolition, cleanup plans and work dating back more than a decade focused on the larger portion of the property to the west of I-495, largely ignoring a 1.4-acre remnant orphaned by interstate highway construction in the late 1960s and 1970s.

"We're going to do an investigation on that side to see if it poses a risk, and if a remedy is needed," Ratsep said, noting the remnant should have been part of the overall plan from the beginning.

The DuPont Co. will pay for the work, Ratsep said. DNREC officials are unsure about the degree of contamination in soils beneath the stockpile site, and have not confirmed the thickness of any clean soils above it. Past studies attributed virtually all soil contamination under DuPont's land to long-ago ore processing and other industrial activities in the area.

Stone, soil and pavement was used to cap the main Christina Labs property, which was leased to Port Contractors Inc. That company eventually built a bulk material storage building just west of I-495.

Keogh Contracting Co., which dumped the soil on the smaller parcel, has family ties through its owner to Port Contractors.

DNREC officials separately reported the agency would have no comment on an ongoing investigation into Keogh's apparent failure to secure a stormwater and erosion control permit from the City of Wilmington for the stockpiling operation. The agency declined to provide details on either the investigation or communications with the city's administration of its state-delegated environmental-permitting program.

DelDOT officials have said they are researching property boundaries in the area, as well, in part to determine whether users of the landlocked site of the dirt stockpile would have trespassed over DelDOT land to reach it from Christiana Avenue.